


Heavylanders Never Learn

by Cadhla



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:45:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5455394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cadhla/pseuds/Cadhla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus Wulfenbach did not intend to go to Skifander.  Especially not as his departure from Europa involved poison.  Alas for him, the best laid plans of scientists and Sparks so often go awry...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavylanders Never Learn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kay_obsessive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_obsessive/gifts).



Lucretia Mongfish was many things. Beautiful, yes: the sort of beauty that should have been crafted in a secret lab, assembled one perfect piece at a time, sliced out of a hundred village girls fortunate enough to have a single flawless feature, unfortunate enough to flaunt that tiny fragment of the ideal where Lucretia's creator could see it, desire it, and eventually claim it as his own. But somehow, nature had done for her what science should have, had made her devastating to behold, conquering hearts without even trying. Not that she didn’t try. Lucretia worked for everything she had, and gladly. Nothing was worth having if it wasn’t earned.

Brilliant, yes: that, too, was natural, although Klaus sometimes suspected her father of shocking her a time or two when she was younger, forcing that bright and beautiful mind to run in more orderly channels. She lacked the scattershot approach of most Sparks, focusing without the attendant madness that science, becoming SCIENCE!, would usually demand. She scared him sometimes, and then she delighted him, a constant adventure, a constant mystery. He had long since decided that he was going to spend the rest of her life in his presence, enjoying the complication she presented.

But for all her beauty, for all her brilliance, she was also practical. She understood that sometimes, letting things get cluttered was a good way to have all her perfect, complicated plans fall into ruin. So it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when she slipped the attar of pit viper into his tea, knocked him unconscious for the better part of a month, loaded him into a home-built rocketship with the aerodynamics of a dead weasel, and shot him at the moon. Honestly, what was more surprising was that she hadn’t done any of those things _sooner_.

Had he been conscious during the trip, Klaus would doubtless have been able to fix the navigation system, or at least improve the aerodynamics, and thus potentially make landing on the actual moon, rather than hitting the moon’s moon, an astrological anomaly that was mostly spoken of in hushed whispers, lest someone with an understanding of orbital dynamics appear and begin beating the speaker about the head and shoulders with an umbrella. The “moon’s moon,” ostensibly the hidden jewel of a team of strong-willed female Sparks who had simply wanted to be left alone by their male counterparts, was supposedly a construct shot into space and placed in a stable orbit around the larger, more sensible, _real_ moon. It couldn’t possibly exist. Such a thing would be a miracle of science, an exemplar of SCIENCE!, and an affront to the laws of physics, which did persist in, well, persisting.

Since it couldn’t possibly exist, it was only right that Klaus was somewhat put out to wake and find himself, and Lucretia’s ship, perched in the branches of a tree the likes of which he had never seen before. A green-haired woman in what looked like extremely expensive silk pajamas was standing outside the shattered viewport, a spear in her hand, looking at him curiously.

“Za lern klowpa?” she inquired.

“Well,” he said. “Isn’t this charming? Hello, ma’am. I am Klaus Wulfenbach. You would be?”

“Klowpa morp denada,” she said, frowning.

“I’m sorry. I don’t speak Greenie.”

She pointed her spear at the front of his ship. “Klowpa,” she said, with the patience of someone who was attempting to speak to a very small child, or a very intelligent monkey. “Klowpa morp denada.”

“I’m sorry. I still have no idea what you’re trying to s--” His final word became a scream as the ship finally finished snapping the branch that had been bearing the majority of its weight, and plummeted (albeit at a slower than usual pace) toward the ground below.

Zantabraxus--”Zan” to her friends, not that she had many, as Princess Royal of Skifander, Scourge of the Unwitting, Keeper of the Sacred Cheeseboard--sighed as she watched him fall. //Heavylanders,// she said. //They never learn.//

Jumping down from the tree, she began her descent toward the place where he had, presumably, landed.

*

A fall from a reasonable-to-great height wouldn't normally be enough to _kill_ Klaus Wulfenbach, who was, after all, sturdier than the average bear. (It was unclear who had decided that bears would make a good unit of measurement, but they had proven to be remarkably accurate when gauging just how much damage most Constructs could handle.) It would, however, have been enough to bruise him a bit, which was why it was so disconcerting when, at the end of his fall, he bounced. Not a great deal. More than should have been possible under normal gravity. Which meant...

"It's real." He picked himself up from the loamy ground, brushing the leaves and flower petals off his trousers, and wished that Lucretia had been considerate enough to put a shirt on him before she packed him up and attempted to _ship him to the moon_. Then again, Lucretia had never been the most considerate of evil damsels--she caused more distress than she would ever once be in--and she had said, on more than one occasion, that she enjoyed the sight of his patchwork chest more than virtually almost any other part of his body. Only virtually. She had her other, less socially appropriate favorites. He was lucky, really, that she'd allowed him to keep his trousers.

Klaus bent, selected a sizable rock, and straightened before releasing it. It fell, but not fast enough. "It's _real_."

"Ler kuma vortata," said a voice. It was familiar. As there was only one familiar voice on this...habitat...he knew who was addressing him, and didn't turn, choosing instead to pick up and drop the rock again.

The voice didn't like that. "Ler kuma _vortata_ ," it said, sounding annoyed.

"It's all real." Klaus turned to regard the green-haired woman gravely. "The SKIFANDER Project. It's real."

"Skifander," said the woman. Now she sounded surprised. She nodded vigorously, gesturing around herself, so as to encompass the entire landscape. "Skifander."

"I am not familiar, yet, with the local accent, but I'm hearing a distinct lack of capital letters in the way you pronounce the name of this place. SKIFANDER: Stereo-Kinetic Independent Flying and Navigationally Directed Exogenic Residence. Where is..." He stopped, wracking his mind for the name. Finally: "Where is Oona Asphoderi? This was her project. I'm not sure how she managed chromatic shift and a new language in twenty years, but I'm sure she'll be able to explain it. Take me to your leader."

The green-haired woman's eyes widened. "Asphoderi klima aborja?"

"Yes. Asphoderi. Oona will see me, I'm sure. I'm an old friend."

Zan had been faced with many trials and dangers since she had grown old enough to roam free in the forests of her home, asserting her dominion over the oft-dangerous land. As a future Queen of Skifander, she was expected to be able to handle anything her Kingdom wanted to throw at her. A stranger falling out of the sky and asking to speak to her fifteen-times great-grandmother was, however, a bit much.

So really, it was completely understandable when she hit him in the head with her spear rather than allowing him to say another word. Klaus collapsed, finally as incapacitated as Lucretia had intended.

Zantabraxus, Princess Royal of Skifander, Heir to the Mysteries of Oona Asphoderi, Grinder of the Holy Flour, scooped the stranger who had dared to speak the holiest of names off the ground, slung him over her shoulder, and started the long walk back to the palace.

*

//Mother.// Zan knelt reverently before the throne of Queen Zellarah of Skifander, sixteenth to wear the holy crown, She in Whose Name Orbital Decay Was Denied. //I have come seeking audience.//

//Aren't you supposed to be running around the jungle, trying to get eaten by something right now?// Zellarah's tone was not unfriendly. She looked at her daughter with mild affection, as she might have looked at a herd of mimmoths that had somehow charged into the palace and started stealing all the biscuits.

Really, there wasn't that much difference between Zan and the mimmoths. Both were wild things, as all Princesses of Skifander were encouraged to be. Sometimes encouraged a bit too enthusiastically, it was true; Zan was their fourth Princess in this generation, and the first to actually reach adulthood before getting eaten. Zellarah was starting to think that she might be able to step down, rather than taking another husband and having another baby. That would be nice. She had things she wanted to do, and very few of them could be accomplished from her current position.

//I _was_ running around the jungle, and there's nothing there that's big enough to eat me.// Zan allowed herself to look briefly smug. //Most of them stay out of my way.//

//Impressive.//

//Mother, I was in the jungle when a ship fell out of the sky and wedged itself in the canopy. I went to investigate, and found a man, a living man, still in the ship.//

//Interesting.// Zellarah leaned back in her throne. //Is he still a living man, or did you take him apart?//

//He looks as if several people have already taken him apart, and put him back together again when they were finished. Without killing him.//

//Sparks. There are Sparks in the down-below, daughter. You know this.//

//I do. But Mother...he invoked Great-Gramma.//

//Which one?//

//Oona Asphoderi, Designer of the Holy Calendar, She Who Unmade Time.//

Zellarah was on her feet before she had stopped to think about it. //WHAT?!// she bellowed.

(Outside the throne room, the guards exchanged uneasy glances and inched a little further from the doors, in case she came storming out. They might be able to avoid being reduced to paste, if they timed their jumps well.)

//He called her a friend. He seemed to think that she was still alive.// Zan shook her head. //I think he may have been turned in time, as she was. Mother, what should I do?//

A man who had known Oona Asphoderi herself, before she had passed into legend and cautionary tale...Zellarah sank slowly back to her throne. //Befriend him,// she said. //Learn his reasons for coming here. And, if necessary, slit his throat. Remind him that men come to Skifander at their own peril.//

//Yes, Mother,// said Zan.

//You may go.//

//Thank you, Mother,// said Zantabraxus, Princess Royal of Skifander, Watcher of the Shining Moon, Holder of Seventy-Three Uses For A Breakfast Tray, before she turned and fled the room.

She opened the doors with such force that both guards were hit. As both of them lived, they really had to take it as a successful duty shift.

*

Klaus had been...call it "unsurprised" to wake and find himself tucked into a prison cell. It was a nicely decorated cell, with a soft bed and with gauzy tapestries hanging from the ceiling, and a cheese and fruit tray near the door, but he had been in enough prison cells to know one when he saw one. The bars on the window, for example, were a strong indicator, as was the absence of a knife to go with the cheese. That was faintly insulting, actually. He was a Spark. He could make a weapon out of six grapes and a piece of lint. Refusing to give him a knife was just _tacky_.

At least the cheese was tasty. It was no variety he knew, a little sweet, a little sharp, with an echo of burn on the back of the tongue. And it paired remarkably well with pickled grapes.

He had finished the cheese, and was considering the merits of calling a guard to ask for more, when the door to his cel swung open and the pajama-clad, green-haired woman from before filled the doorway. She was looking at him with earnest curiosity, almost like she didn't see him as a threat. Perhaps that was the reason they hadn't given him a knife. Perhaps no one here realized he was a Spark. Perhaps no one here _recognized_ him. After spending so long in the company of the Heterodynes, the idea of blending into the crowd was almost appealing.

"Morna gli oppari," she said.

Klaus sighed. "I am terribly sorry, miss. I still do not speak Greenie. Have you been able to find Oona?"

"Oona..." She hesitated before miming strangling herself, crossing her hands over her chest, and dramatically closing her eyes. She cracked one open after a second had passed, checking his reaction.

"Ah." He grimaced. "Oona died."

"Died! Ki, ki, Oona died."

"Ki...yes? Is that 'yes'?"

The woman looked at him blankly. He swallowed the urge to groan.

"How would you know? We have no shared vocabulary. Think, Klaus. Like a Spark, not like some damnable chump."

"Chump?" asked the woman. She smiled before placing a hand flat against her chest and saying, formally, "Zantabraxus."

"Zanta--are you telling me your name? I am Klaus Wulfenbach."

"Ki, ki, Chump! Ler forla Chump, rel forla Zantabraxus."

Klaus put a hand over his eyes. "I have fallen into the land of green-haired impossibilities, Oona is dead and cannot give me the tools I need to repair my ship, and I seem to have just changed my own name. What a lovely day this has been. _Thank_ you, Lucretia, for giving me such a lovely day. I am going to turn your skull into a jaunty hat."

"Nor?"

"I'm sorry." Klaus uncovered his eyes and directed a sincere, if weary, smile at the green-haired woman, who was, after all, simply trying to deal with an invader from the stars. Really, she had been very civilized. Even when she'd knocked him out, it had been carefully. "I'm being terribly rude. Teach me more. What is this called?" He pointed to the table.

//Table,// said Zantabraxus, Princess Royal of Skifander, Designer of Unspeakable Cheeses, Creator of Seventy-Three New Ways to Die. Her tongue suddenly felt two sizes too large and her skin suddenly felt two sizes too small. He wasn't a handsome man. He wasn't a charming man. He couldn't even talk properly. But when he smiled...

 _Oh, he is going to be trouble,_ she thought, and sat down on the floor to continue naming everything in sight.

*

//So this Lucretia woman loaded you into a starship and launched you at us because she...what? Wanted to marry someone else? How tedious.// Zan rolled over, enjoying the way the moonlight played across her back and thighs. It was particularly bright tonight, gilding the land in silver. How lovely Skifander was, when the moon was shining. Really, it was a pity that anyone had to live anywhere else. //Why couldn't she simply keep you on as a sex slave? That's what I would have done.//

//The noble houses of Europa are generally less than accepting in the matter of, ah, sex slaves,// said Klaus, who had mastered Skifandese with a Spark's speed--although not without a series of comic misconceptions, leading, among other things, to his charming local name. Most of the court still insisted on calling him "Chump." //The Heterodynes have traditionally been trend-setters in such arenas, and the current crop of Heterodynes are more interested in heroism than hedonism.// He paused. //That would have been a lovely piece of alliteration in my mother tongue, I'll have you know. Your language is robbing me of all poetry.//

//My language is poetic and succinct, and has three hundred ways of shouting 'run,'// said Zan primly. //First Queen Oona was very specific when she ordered its creation. She wanted something that would fit our needs, and not carry any of the baggage of the world we had left behind.//

//Indeed,// said Klaus, who had learned, quickly, not to comment on the linguistic limitations of Skifandese. It _was_ a very pretty language, as long as he didn't want words like "diplomacy," or "winter," or "non-violent solutions." //Besides, I don't think I would have enjoyed being a sex slave. It seems untidy.//

//Ah.// Zantabraxus, Princess Royal of Skifander, Decider of the Undecided, Baker of the Holy Trifle, considered Klaus for a moment. He was lovely in the moonlight. She wasn't done with him yet. Perhaps she never would be. //I suppose I shall have to marry you, then.//

//Yes,// he said gravely. //I suppose you shall.//

*

Zantabraxus, soon to be Queen of Skifander, Mistress of the Slicing Blades, Guardian of Seventy-Three Flavors of Jam, bore down hard on the ropes that had been tied to Klaus’s elbows. Supposedly, this was so she could borrow his strength, adding it to her own while they brought their child (their daughter, it _had_ to be their daughter, _she was going to be Queen and she was going to have a daughter_ ) into the world. She was pretty sure it was just so she could be sure that he was suffering as much as she was, and at the moment, she was good with that. Not just good. _Great_.

Zan screamed and yanked. Klaus grunted.

//The baby’s coming, Chump, the baby’s coming and _this is all your fault_ ,// she snarled.

Klaus smirked. //I seem to recall you being a willing participant,// he said. //You insisted, as a matter of fact.//

Zan glared at him as best she could through the matted fringe of her hair, and groaned as the baby inside her shoved, hard, against parts of her body that she had never wanted shoved. //I take it back.//

//Do you want me to go build a time machine, travel back nine months, and punch myself in the jaw on our wedding night?//

For a moment, Zan looked as if she were seriously considering it. Then she howled in renewed pain, and the moment passed.

The midwife bent, urging Zan to push, push harder, you’re almost there. A new scream split the air. The midwife went white as milk, and for one terrible moment, it looked as if she might drop the baby.

//Well?// demanded Klaus. //Is something wrong with the child?//

//It is a healthy...son,// said the midwife. She looked ill.

Zan screamed again. The midwife handed the baby, still wailing and unswaddled, off to an attendant.

//Wait!// she cried. //We're not done! Twins!//

Zan’s scream this time was more despair than it was pain. A boy might have been allowed to live if born alone. As one of a pair...

Klaus looked at her, red-faced and weeping, and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was going to break her heart. It was the only way to save his son. It was the only way to save his wife from doing something she could never undo, never recover from. He would be the perfect scapegoat. He was a heavylander, after all.

Heavylanders never learn.

*

The mother and child (children, but no one knew that; no one but his wife, and her handmaids, and the midwife, all of whom had been sworn to secrecy, all of whom were loyal enough to hold their tongues, lest they wished to hold those tongues in their hands) were sequestered for seven days following the birth, while their systems recovered. For Zeetha and Gilgamesh, those seven days were spent breathing in the artificial air, acclimating to the pull of low orbital gravity.

Zan lay in bed, an infant in each arms, looking at them in despair. Zeetha was a Princess of Skifander born, from her emerald hair to the fury with which she reacted whenever her brother was more than a few feet away from her. She had a scream like a dying star-drake, and a grip that was as impressive as it was ineffective. She would be a great warrior, someday.

Gilgamesh was quieter. Softer. More studious. He tracked everything with his infant eyes, watching, taking the measure of the world. Had he not been the firstborn, and hence the heir to a throne he could never hold, she would have been enchanted by how much he looked like his father. As it was...

The law said he had to die. The law said no man could hold the throne of Skifander; the law said her oldest child would be her heir. Born alone, she could have repudiated him as no child of hers. To do that now would be to also repudiate a princess born, and cast the throne into question. The solution was as clear as it was terrible.

//Skylanders never learn either,// she informed her son, leaning forward until her forehead touched his. He smelled of milk and powder, and she loved him with all her warrior’s heart. //Oh, my son. Your bones will be my shame.//

//Zan.//

//Chump.// She turned. Her husband was standing in the doorway, expression grave. He smelled of grease and ash. He had been at the forges, then; he was building something.

Her heart leapt. Perhaps he was building a solution.

//Give me the boy,// he said.

Even knowing what was coming for her son if he stayed with her, what his end would be, her chest tightened at the thought of giving him away. She tightened her hold on both babes protectively. //Why?//

//Because you are weak and wounded, and I am overpowering you and taking him away.// He made no move to do any such thing. //Your handmaids will never tell anyone. You will not need to kill him. You will be free to rule, untainted, unburdened.//

And alone. A widow in all but burial rites. //Where will you go?//

Klaus looked to the window. High overhead, the gleaming blue ball of Earth moved slowly through the night sky. //Home,// he said. //I will go home.//

//Ah,// she sighed. //I will miss you, husband.//

//And I will miss you, wife.// Klaus finally moved, walking to the bed where his wife and children waited. His first kiss was for Zeetha, pressed against her forehead. He would never see her grown.

His second kiss was for Zan, his lover, his life, the woman who had purged Lucretia’s poisons from his body and his soul alike. This one lasted longer, and had the old legends of Sparks birthing their children from passion alone been true, they would have had a dozen heirs by the time he pulled away. She stared at him, eyes wide and faintly unfocused. He looked back, making no effort to conceal his own sorrow.

Then, without another word, he lifted his son from his mother’s arms and walked out of the room.

Zantabraxus, almost Queen of Skifander, Lady of the Hidden Doors, Keeper of Queen Zellarah’s Sacred Scone Recipe, cradled her only daughter in her arms, and watched him go.

*

The ship had been Lucretia’s once. It was his now, rebuilt and renamed. _Klowpa_ proclaimed the writing on the prow. The Skifanders had thought it funny when he named his ship “ship,” but some things were precious for reasons that defied explanation. Some things needed to be remembered.

Strapped into the seat next to his, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach wailed his infant fury to the world. Klaus smiled wearily and engaged the thrusters.

“Hold fast, boy,” he said. “We’re going home.”


End file.
